How The Grinch Stole Martha's Christmas

Legal wunderkind Walter Dellinger's explanation of why Martha Stewart will be home for Christmas only in her dreams, is now up on "Martha Talks". The Fly Under the Bridge Academy is duly impressed at the lengths Federal prosecutors will go to misuse taxpayer money to indulge their personal grudges.

What one will find in the appeal brief is that:

(1) the trial judge in Stewart-Baconovic case allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence of illegal insider trading by the CEO of Imclone, Sam Waksal, who is a personal friend of Martha Stewart. But, there was no evidence that Waksal shared non-public information about Imclone with Martha Stewart, and neither Stewart, nor her stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, was even charged with illegal insider trading.

Amazingly, the trial judge even ruled that the defense was barred from explaining to the jury that Stewart's sale of what remained of her Imclone stock on December 27, 2001, was perfectly legal. Nor did the judge instruct the jury to that effect prior to their deliberations.

(2) The trial judge allowed the transcript--and at one point, even a tape recording--of testimony co-defendant Bacanovic gave during an interrogation by the SEC, to undercut Stewart's defense witness Heidi DeLuca's claims to have talked with Baconovic about a possible sale of Imclone stock by Stewart if the share price dropped under $60.

But, Stewart had no opportunity to cross-examine Bacanovic, because he was being tried along with Stewart, and thus could not be compelled to testify.

(3) The prosecution allowed a government expert--
Lawrence Stewart , the Laboratory Director and Chief Forensic
Scientist of the United States Secret Service--to lie under oath twice during the course of the trial, about his analysis of a crucial piece of exculpatory evidence--a worksheet of Peter Bacanovic's with the notation: Imclone @60.

(4) One of the jurors who sat in judgment of Stewart and Bacanovic seems to have perjured himself in order to get a seat on the jury.

The result of this bizarre string of events being that hundreds of people have lost their jobs with Martha Stewart Living, millions of dollars of market capitalization of that company have been lost, and its CEO is now in a West Virginia prison making a new group of friends.

Merry Christmas.